Because I truly believe in an increasingly secular age in which there are so few sanctuaries from the stress of getting and spending, so few prophets to summon us up to higher selves and lend some understanding to our lives.

Their mountain sanctuaries in Mexico like, for example, at El Rosario in Michoacán, are filled with Oyamel fir trees, which are used for resting between flights and for shelter from the cold, rain and snow (they seek out an environment similar to the one they inhabit up north).

In any case, one of the best times to visit the sanctuaries is in February when Ocampo and Zitácuaro celebrate the Festival de la Marisposa Monarca with traditional dances, music, food and a handicrafts market.

It had the look of very high church in the service which was celebrating, and I am afraid my mind was taken less by the monument of Sir Nicholas than by the black-robed figure of the young man who knelt with bowed head at the back of the church and rapt me with the memory of the many sacerdotal shapes which I used to see doing the like in Latin sanctuaries.